Collection Highlights - 1943 Zince coated Steel Cent
Cuz I work through my collection, this one struck me as one of the more interesting coins when I found it. I had no idea that in 1943 they tried minting the wheat cent with zinc coated steel. I actually thought that when I found a couple of these that they were potentially coins that were treated in let's say a high school chemistry class to change their coloring. It wasn't until I student reading the red book I got that I learned that they actually made these out of steel as a war effort to save copper. Personally I have a decent amount of these from both sides of the family, in fact I got so many from my father's side that they are stored in a tube labeled what they are. None of them are good enough to showcase in it 2x2 and having 50 of them, it felt a little Overkill to put them all into 2x2s since they're the same year in mint mark. I may eventually decide to put them into this but for now.
As a trial, they minted 684 million of these out of steel coming from the Philadelphia mint. They used the same design as the other years, they just changed the middle. It went with zinc couldn't steal, and it weighed in it only 2.7 g. The number of coins minted in Philadelphia was about three times as much as Denver and San Francisco, it did not end well and it remains the only year that the mint struck steel coins. Most of these that I've seen did not retain their original luster, they all took heavy environmental damage and they have a hazy appeal.
Obverse
For me it's just so different to see the Lincoln cent in a steel variety and color versus that typical copper Hill you're looking for. It is quite an oddity and I don't think they necessarily kept the details quite as well either. I didn't really look at what this would rate out as because I don't think it's high enough to even worry about and it's certainly not a key date.
Reverse
The reverse does look decent, as actually the wheat has what appears to be almost full lines from the photo. But again it has that hazy environmental damage look and both sides have a few dark spots from something. It's a shame they didn't wear a little bit better and maintain that mint luster that you can see on the Penn State coins on pcgs. Those look really impressive when you still maintain that mint luster shine.
I like this coin because it went from thinking it was some sort of weird high school chemistry experiment to learning the history lesson of the 1943 copper shortage and more effort to Mint these out of steel. I really like the way the uncirculated mint statement lost her coins look, I'm not really a fan of the feel or the look of the ones that have that chalky appeal. It's too bad they didn't mint these out of silver.
